The Runaway Bride: Redux

What's this? The only computer in the Toon household, relocated to my old bedroom? With me sleeping there for five nights? With my reputation? Has no one considered the consequences?

Oh well, festive blogging it is, then.

Doctor Who: The Runaway Bride: Redux
starring Dalek Sec as the Blaxploitation Dalek

Whooooo is the Dalek
That's a Sec machine to all the Daleks?
Sec! Ya damn right...

Bedfordshire, Earth - 2167 AD
DALEK: Pe-ne-tra-tion of the Earth's mantle in ten rels.
BLACK DALEK: Hot dang ba-by, I've been wai-tin' three years for this. We're go-nna get our-selves a pla-net sized ride! Crui-sin' 'round the galaxy on a whole mu-tha-**-****' world! The chicks will cream!
DALEK: Five rels... four... three... two... one...
#DING!#
BD: Ding?
D: Sound e-ffect con-firmed.
BD: Well, what the hell does that mean, "Ding"?
D: Sen-sors in-di-cate Da-lek drill has come to rest a-gainst a ma-nu-fac-tured ob-ject.
BD: At the Earth's core?
D: It is the Earth's core.
BD: Whoa ba-by, where's the mol-ten i-ron and shit? We ain't ex-pec-tin' a ma-nu-fac-tured core, are we? I thought you told me this world had vol-ca-nic ac-ti-vi-ty?
D: Da-ta re-tur-ning... It is a space ve-ssel. It o-ccu-pies the full vo-lume of the pla-net's core, de-spite its awk-ward star like shape.
BD: Mu-tha-**-****!
D: There are also se-ve-ral a-rach-nid corp-ses.
BD: Da-mmit, if there's a space-ship al-rea-dy down there, we did-n't need to blow our mo-ney on that damn big en-gine!
D: We could take it back to the shop, Da-lek Sec.
BD: Hold it... did you keep the re-ceipt?
D: ...no, Da-lek Sec.
BD: Go-da-mmit, we can't e-ven get a re-fund!
D: I a-po-lo-gise, Da-lek Sec.
BD: Aw, I can't stay mad at you, sweet pseu-do-pods. It's O-K su-gar, I'll just ex-ter-mi-nate the ma-na-ger.

Notable things I've done this year

Let's see now.

• I've joined Longwell Green Orchestra's percussion section properly (i.e. I now pay membership fees).
• Bought musical instruments of my very own - a glockenspiel, a melodica, a kazoo and, after a false start, a swannee whistle. Painted the glockenspiel case in colours more interesting than its original powder blue (or, as I prefer to think of it, "pimped my 'spiel").
• Attended my first Eastercon, hooray!
• Launched a fanzine. Launched a website to disseminate the fanzine.
• Taken two management accountancy exams, shortly before realising this stuff wasn't meant for my brain after all.
• Handed over my old job to a guy in India. Ended up with a very similar job in the same office, but in a different department.
• Failed to get a job at SFX magazine (although I did surprisingly get an interview).
• Come this close to getting onto TV, but the woman from BBC4's My Science Fiction Life programme never called back. After transmission next Friday, I get to find out whether or not this was in fact a mercy.
• Whittled down my book collection further than ever before - it all fits into one flat now! Even together with The Lovely Jo's book collection!
• Won a competition! This got me a DVD of Sir Henry at Rawlinson End from Bristol & Bath Venue magazine. I suspect I may have been the only entrant.

Christmas is upon us, so I very probably won't post again until January. To my reader(s), a very pleasant and relaxing festive holiday.

So here it is...

I feel some sort of retrospective summary of the year is in order. This'll be much easier next year, when I can expect to have 12 fully documented months of blogging to refer to. This year I'll actually have to rely on my memory, which was shot to hell in 'Nam. Easy stuff first.

Best listen of the year
Without a doubt, Cantus Buranus by Corvus Corax, the German hard rock setting of the "Carmina Burana". Damn, I still haven't watched the DVD on that. Something for January, perhaps.

Best TV viddy
The Girl in the Fireplace, this year's Moffat episode of Doctor Who. He's mighty good! Can Paul Cornell's two-parter unseat him next year?
(Competition in this category was more numerous than in previous years, but not actually much better - I've just been watching more BBC2 quiz shows, and Robin Hood. And The Daily Show, the best TV discovery of the year, although I'd be hard pushed to proclaim any single edition of it my best TV experience of the year. Apart, possibly, from last week's "Goodbye, Donald Rumsfeld" edition, which was very, very good. Points to BBC4 for their science fiction season, although this kind of fizzled down from a full evening's programming to a half-hour repeat on alternating evenings.)

Best film viddy
Probably Mirrormask. I seem to recall this didn't hit Bristol's smallest independent cinema until early this year. Since no other films more than a month old have left an impression on my memory, I must assume they were all as dust before it. Recent viddy The Prestige is a very close second. Pan's Labyrinth looks like the sort of thing that might appeal, but we haven't had the chance to see it and probably won't now until the DVD release.

Best read (comic book)
Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuh, well, I'm going to have to say Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol, some of which was printed in trade paperback form (and all of which I discovered) this year, even though it's more than a decade old. As for comics that are still clinically alive, probably Ex Machina. Oi, Warren Ellis, why haven't I seen a new TPB of Planetary in nearly two years? Oi, Alan Moore, where's the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier? (I know this last one: it's been delayed until February owing to problems with some of the novelty items the book's meant to include. Shame, but it does mean other comics had a chance this year.)

Best read (sans pictures)
This one I'm probably going to have to come back and edit owing to memory failure. It may be Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds, which I bought second-hand on the basis that it was recommended in one of David Langford's old SFX columns. (It's true, I buy what David Langford tells me to buy. Hey, he was right about Kai Lung.) It may be one of the anthologies of Jeffrey Ford's short fiction. In fact, it may be Jeffrey Ford's The Girl in the Glass. It may be the short story about transient roads in China Mieville's Looking For Jake (did he get it from Doom Patrol, or did they both get it from Borges?). Basically I'm going to have to get home, stare at the bookshelves and remind myself.
EDIT: Of course, I forgot about Jon Courtenay Grimwood's End of the World Blues. And Adam Roberts' Gradisil, although... it's not his best. Nor really the best of the year. I think in the end I'd have to go for End of the World Blues (long form) and the China Mieville short story, "Reports of Certain Events in London" (short form).

Worst read
I'm not going to have to ponder this one! Naturally, this category will exclude all review books, because I deliberately ask Mr Keith "the Guvnor" Brooke to send me small-press books, print-on-demand books and anything vaguely intriguing to review, in the hope of stumbling across fantastic works of literature not yet discovered by the broader public. The upshot of this is that I end up with stacks of very bad books (and plain old mediocre books too) as well as the occasional gem. If I took this lot into consideration for worst read of the year, I'd never reach a decision.
So, the worst proper, serious book I've read this year was Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds. I'd heard it was derivative, but in fact it turned out to be Greg Bear's Eon reheated with wafer-thin characters, bugger all dramatic tension and a very rushed ending. Did he use two books' worth of mojo on Century Rain and come to this one empty? One suspects it may be so.

Another culture-packed long weekend

1. Robin Hood. It's getting grim in Nottingham. I'm quite surprised the Sheriff didn't get some of what's coming to him this week. Still, presumably they can't kill him off and have a second series. The chances of me watching that second series have got gradually better over the last few weeks, but will largely depend on whether the final couple of episodes maintain the standard or revert to sledgehammer politics and cop-out endings. Even at this stage I don't dare to rule out the latter possibility.

2. Eragon. Oh, the transparently named Eragon. (He'll call the sequel "Fragon" - d'you see what he did there?) I may only have read one Anne McCaffrey novel (my eyes, it burns my eyes...), but I'm pretty sure I've seen this idea of Dragonriders and telepathic dragons somewhere before. Hmm, "Eragonriders of Pern". A trip to IMDB reveals that the plummy blond Brit kid is not actually the same plummy blond Brit kid who starred in Stormbreaker as Alex (Dragon) Rider.
(IMDB also reveals the disappointing truth that Black Christmas, seen named on the outside of the cinema, is a horror film. I'd imagined it as a seasonal blaxploitation movie:
"Damn, it's foggy outside. I'm gonna have to find me the shiniest-nosed brother in the 'hood to pull my sleigh tonight!" "Screw yo' sleigh, Santa, you deliverin' presents fo' da man! How can you do that, Santa? How can you deliver presents fo' da man?" "Shut yo' mouth, Rudolph!" Etc, etc. Why, it's as if the last thirty years never happened.)
See, sometimes it's good to watch a... differently good film. Gives you more to say afterwards. The prologue:
V/O: Everybody used to fly around on dragons until one man killed off all the other dragonriders and became king. His name is Galbatorix. Look, here's a picture of John Malkovich, just so you know who's playing Galbatorix. He's the king, by the way. Did we mention that? So anyway, somebody's stolen a valuable stone from the king, Galbatorix. He's being played by Malkovich, in case you'd forgotten. He's not very happy about it.
MALKOVICH: Somebody's stolen a stone from me. I'm not very happy about it.
HENCHMAN: I shall find it at once, Galbatorix.
MALKOVICH: Address me by my proper title!
HENCHMAN: Sorry, o King.
MALKOVICH: That's better. I wouldn't want any four-year-olds in the audience to miss the important plot points.
Later, in the tavern, haggard old mentor Jeremy Irons explains the premise of the film again:
IRONS: Everybody used to fly around on dragons, you know. That is, until the king killed off all the other dragonriders.
SOLDIER: Silence, fool! We don't like expository talk 'round 'ere!
Enter the hero:
ERAGON: Golly gosh, I'm only a simple farmhand. It's jolly hard work, you know, although I do enjoy a bit of roister-doistering with my equally plummy cousin.
Then, after he and his dragon have saved a community from ogre attack by torching the entire area:
VILLAGERS: Hooray, we cheer for you! We cheer for you in the burning ashes of our village!
Some of them were even cheering while he was doing it, the flames leaping up around them. Takes all sorts.
At least it wasn't as bad as Inspector Gadget. Perhaps I shouldn't demand so much from kids' films.

3. Torchwood. Ah, the effort to make Owen look like a human being has begun. It's too late, Mr Chibnall, too late!
Now, I don't stand for the obligatory knocking of the head honcho when it comes to Doctor Who. Many fans used to knock John Nathan-Turner, but while his mistakes are undeniably plural, he did a lot of good for the show too. I see many fans online now, knocking Russell T Davies, but wrongly in my opinion. I don't hold with this idea that the producer alone can drag a show down - and yet with Torchwood I find myself uncomfortably drawn to just that position.
It's like there are two Torchwoods - one written by Chris Chibnall, in which everyone is unlikeable scum, especially the rapist-in-waiting character called Owen, and one in which a variety of exciting things happen to a team of interesting people, one of whom is a mildly unloveable chancer called Owen. If it was just one or the other, I'd be better able to process the show as a whole. The problem now is that because of the Chibnall episodes, my perception of Owen is such that I can only cheer when his tiny leathery grey heart is crushed by love, and can only look forward to the beating next week's trailer promises. I can sense, frustratingly, how much more engaging these episodes would be if I didn't hate the character.
And overall I didn't think it was a bad episode at all. In fact, quite a good quiet character-driven episode (with much gratuitous sex). It's just that one area - making Owen sympathetic - in which it fell down, because the rug was pulled out from under it several weeks ago.
Oh, there was just one other thing - the flashbacks at the end seemed a bit pointless, yet I was left waiting for a final scene to round the episode off. Those minutes could've been better spent, people.

4. John Barrowman's Musical Christmas. Hooray! It's on BBC Radio 2 on Friday at 7.30pm, and everyone must listen to it (on pain of painfulness). Well, that's the second time now that I've driven over Westminster Bridge (invaded by Daleks, 1964) and parked up for some theatrical culture just downriver from the Millennium Eye (Nestene transmitter, 2005). We even found the same Italian restaurant we went to the last time. A jolly Monday evening was had listening to the talented Barrowman and friends crooning out show tunes and festive songs, and I'm sure my female associates - Sarah and The Lovely Jo - got even more out of it than I did. Tsk. He's gay, ladies.

Red, Gold and Green

The colours of reggae, Boy George's dreams... and Christmas. The decorations have come out in force in our neighbourhood over the last couple of days, and many a house is now flashing away like the collectible objects in a Spectrum platform game. Our immediate neighbour's house looks uncannily like a screen shot of "Jet Set Willy". I'm getting '80s flashbacks here - I keep thinking that, if I just timed it right, I could jump up to their first floor and collect the unidentifiable flashing shape on their roof. That may just be cold virus delirium talking, though.

Makes a pleasant change not to see the usual illuminated tat until a mere fortnight before Christmas. Then again, I haven't been in the centre of town for a while, so will have missed the start of Woolworths' Advent in August.

"All work and no play - that's what the poor do!"

It's a rare weekend when Robin Hood is better than Torchwood. Blimey. Hood may have had the absurdity of lycra-clad Saracen ninja women, but look on the bright side - it had more swordfighting than probably the entire series so far; it had an interesting storyline; it had more between Robin and the Sheriff than the usual playground taunting; it had Guy of Gisburne actually starting to win Marian over; and for the first few minutes it looked like it might even stray into Robin of Sherwood's old mystical territory.

Meanwhile Torchwood seemed to just rehash this year's Who episode Love & Monsters, but without the quirks that made L&M stick out (for better or for worse). It was L&M blanded down to grey. I notice they changed the title at the last minute (from Invisible Eugene to Random Shoes), possibly in a last-ditch effort to make it sound interesting. I was silently begging Peter Kay to turn up slavering in green latex at the end, just to liven it up a bit. Instead the corn and schmaltz dials were ramped up to eleven - and did anyone else get to the final scenes and think "Mary-Sue"? Fan fiction would leave this episode out for the wolves, I tells ya.

"Lots of things you can do with a stopwatch"

1. Robin Hood - another suck-less episode! Damn you, Hood! Perhaps this is it; perhaps the series took seven episodes to work the political unsubtleties out of its system, clear out the outrageous anachronisms and generally find its feet, and from here on in the quality will hold.

Well, we'll see, anyway.

2. Torchwood - OK, now that is the second best episode. (Come on Torchwood, surprise me, outdo the fairies episode!) Although the plot was not without its woolly bits, there was generally less wool than in previous episodes, and you could easily spin your way through it. Lots of nice foreshadowing too. There are but a few questions that need to be answered:

a) Who was supposed to be in charge of continuity for this episode, and were they flayed for pitch night giving way to full daylight in "minutes" towards the end of the episode? The one obvious gaffe that I could spot, but such a major one.

b) Emily Dickinson - why? (Not an existential question.) It's just me, this one. Ever since they used the exact same quote about Death Kindly Stopping For Me in a Babylon 5 episode, I've found her poetry twee and irksome. And the same piece just keeps turning up on TV shows - bah!

c) How did the police get hold of the exact correct edition of ED's poetry in the dead of night, and where did Toshiko's intuitive leap about the ISBN come from? Because from where I was sitting that whole business seemed to have been hand-delivered to the characters by the scriptwriters. "What makes you say that, Tosh?" "Well, it's right here in this script thing."

d) So just what can you do with a stopwatch? I mean, I'm a man of the world, squire, know what I mean? But I'm utterly dumbfounded by this. It's clearly some sort of innuendo from the context, but - what?! You know, stopwatch. Stopwatch, nudge nudge. Oh, right, yeah. Stopwatch. What?!?
"Lots of things you can do with a stopwatch"? I can think of one - timing things. So apart from some sort of kinky timing game, I'm stuck for ideas here. Captain Jack "can think of a few". Ianto has "a whole list". Here, for the benefit of the readers at home, it is.

Ianto Jones' List Of Things You Can Do With A Stopwatch
1. You can take that stopwatch and shove it right up your...

No, I'm stumped.

But aside from all that, a very fine episode.